Monday, August 27, 2007

Take Aim, Push and Pray!

The grandson went to sleep last night - or rather this morning - around 1:30 a.m. I know, by most people's standards, that's a really late bedtime for a 16-month-old, but for him, that's an early hour to crash compared to the hours he'd been keeping of late.

With him, if he happens to fall asleep somewhere between 10 p.m. and midnight, it is almost a guaranteed thing that he will then wake up between midnight and 1:30 a.m. and then, be up, wide awake and bouncing around the playpen. He also likes to make a lot of really LOUD babbling noises from time to time then and all of this combination is what led a couple months back to his sleeping downstairs in the playpen. Taking him upstairs and expecting him to go to sleep and STAY asleep long after his parents have gone to bed was creating way too much havoc with his mother - who frequently had to be up between 6 and 8 a.m. to get ready to go to work. And, his frequent interruptions there weren't very conducive to her getting a decent night's rest so it was decided to leave him down here with me since I rarely go to bed before 2 a.m. and frequently not till as late as 4 or 5 a.m.

In theory, this generally works fairly well. The only time there are problems are when I can't fall asleep shortly after he crashes and am up even later than the 4 a.m. witching hour. Odds are, when this happens, some sweet person - usually a bill collector - will telephone here between 8 and 9 a.m. and wake me up well before my system has gotten in a minimal amount of sleep - like 3-4 hours straight. Phone calls tend to wake me up so much so that I can't go back to sleep then to get that little extra 40 winks and then it throws me off for the balance of the day. So, both the grandson and I have strange sleep patterns - which you've probably already discerned from reading several of my most recent post where I was lamenting about this issue.

However, the topic today centers on the skills one must develop in order to change, clean up, re-dress and then feed said 16-month-old!

He woke up somewhere around 12:30 this afternoon today and apparently he was in a good mood when he woke up too because I wasn't even aware he was sitting up, watching intently whatever fare happened to be playing at that time on the old tv set here.

After his having slept for roughly 10-11 hours, when I went to get him out of the playpen, I was prepared that he most likely would be a tad on the damp side, as that too is the norm. And, I was correct in that assumption too, I must add. The kid's clothes probably could have been wrung out and filled a container with the excess fluid he had there - to say nothing of the other added attraction I could tell was going to meet me when I got these wet clothes off him.

Stripped down, I then set about trying to keep him in one place on the changing table so I could wipe off all traces of previous entries into his little system. Keep in mind, he's not fussing - just constantly moving about and making finding his little behind quite a challenge before he manages to deposit several patches of this residue all over the changing pad too. In that respect, I lost the battle today as the pad is now in dire need of being tossed into the washer.

Okay, finally got the little squirmy worm boy cleaned up and now, to get him dressed. Diaper went on fairly easily but trying to get his "onesy" shirt and then his tee shirt and shorts on him didn't make for an easy task. It's amazing how many things he can spot from his vantage point, laying, trying to sit up, trying to scramble himself into a standing position, all while I'm trying to dress him. It's also amazing to me how difficult it can be to insert two little legs into two little pant leg openings of a pair of shorts too! I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever succeed in dressing this kid!

Eventually, he was fully clothed, happy, content and ready to sit in the high chair while I gave him his "morning" (by his timetable) meal. I mixed up a regular sized cereal bowl of baby rice cereal mixed with warm water and to that, added a jar of baby food -fruits. Today's entre was plums and bananas. Stirred that around to make a smooth concoction for him and settled in to attempt to spoon it into his little mouth.

Now, he's not a fussy eater - not usually anyway - and today was no exception. The only problem is that one never knows where the heck to find his mouth to put the spoonful of goodies into his system.

So it becomes a game - which direction is he looking? Fine, he's glancing off to the left at the tv screen so I shift in my chair, move the spoon towards his mouth at that angle, get it close, closer, ready to slip the spoonful of food in and as I do that, don't you just know he moves his head right at that exact moment and presto magic - voila - cereal and fruit smeared all across his face.

Somehow we continue this process until finally the cereal and fruit mixture has all made its way into his mouth, down the gullet and being digested now - all ready things are working there to make this a speedy return on my efforts as this kid is just a regular little "poop" machine - or so it seems.

Take aim, push it in and in short order, he'll push it out.

The prayer part - well, that worked quite well in that his mother just walked in from work and now, with my blessings, she gets the honors of dealing with him as he works on the many happy returns part of his mealtime!

About Me

Graduate of Penn State so I am a Nittany Lioness I guess. Divorced, raised 3 kids to 3 pretty doggone great adults and now I have Alex, Maya and Kurtis to watch them grow and marvel at how such gorgeous little creatures have a link back to this old soul.